Campbell Newman met Nick Di Girolamo following $5000 donation

Sean Nicholls, Michaela Whitbourn, Kate McClymont

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has admitted meeting with Liberal identity Nick Di Girolamo while Brisbane lord mayor in 2007, but says he would have been unlikely to agree had he known it was tied to a $5000 donation to his re-election fund.

On Monday the Independent Commission Against Corruption heard that political associates of Mr Newman requested a $5000 donation in return for meeting Mr Di Girolamo, the chief executive of Obeid-linked company Australian Water Holdings.

Mr Watson put to Mr Nicolaou that "Mr Newman had a price. He would meet Di Girolamo if Di Girolamo paid $5,000. Correct?"

Mr Nicolaou responded: "Correct."

Mr Nicolaou told the commission he had approached former Queensland Liberal president Con Galtos to arrange the meeting.

The inquiry has heard Mr Nicolaou was paid $5000 a month as a consultant to AWH. Mr Watson said the commission had "hard and fast evidence" that the state-owned Sydney Water picked up the bill for at least some of the payments, totalling $225,000.

The public utility had agreed to cover Australian Water's costs under a badly drafted contract with AWH to manage the rollout of water and sewerage infrastructure in north-western Sydney.

Mr Nicolaou agreed there was not a "shred of paper" showing the work he did for AWH but he agreed to provide emails to the commission.

The principal of advisory firm Solutions R Us, Mr Nicolaou said he was "on call" to Mr Di Girolamo and was retained principally to introduce him to business contacts.

He said one of his tasks was to try to get Mr Di Girolamo into the Qantas Chairman's Lounge but he was unsuccessful.

"Could you ask for me?" Mr Watson quipped.

Mr Nicolaou claimed he never saw the need to tell the chairman of AWH, his friend and now Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos, that he was retained by the company for four years.

"I didn't speak to him because I didn't report to him, I reported to Nick Di Girolamo," he said. "He had a separate role, I had a separate role."

At the time, Mr Nicolaou said Senator Sinodinos was coming into the NSW Liberal Party's offices "once a week, maybe once every two weeks" in his role as honorary treasurer of the party.

Mr Nicolaou also worked from the offices in his role as the executive chairman of the party's fundraising arm, the Millennium Forum.

The pair also talked on the phone "once, maybe twice a week".

"Why wouldn't you mention it casually, such as 'Gee Arthur, thanks for the money?'," Mr Watson said.

Mr Nicolaou said that he told Senator Sinodinos before he joined the AWH board that he would be "doing consultancy work for him".

He said it "didn't cross my mind" to mention it again.

Senator Sinodinos gave evidence last week he was unaware that Mr Nicolaou did work for AWH.

Queensland's deputy opposition leader, Tim Mulherin, called on Mr Newman to return to Brisbane from Tokyo to answer questions from the ICAC hearing.

Mr Mulherin said Mr Newman needed to answer what was discussed at the meeting and who attended.

He asked: "What project or work, if any, arose from that meeting?"

"Is it correct it went to the then Lord Mayor’s campaign fund, Forward Brisbane Leadership?

"Were any other meetings arranged in this way, was this the way business was done under Campbell Newman as Lord Mayor?"

Queensland's Opposition in state parliament last week questioned Mr Newman over a meeting held by his department's director-general Jon Grayson and Eddie Obeid junior.

Mr Newman told parliament a review into the meeting by Mr Robert Cornall, the former secretary of the Commonwealth Attorney General, showed Mr Grayson had disclosed the meeting and that he "had no links with the Obeid family".

Mr Newman however told parliament that Queensland Labor had received donations from the Obeid family.